My father, for as long as I can remember (I'm sure my mother can vouch for the many years before me), has spent an inordinate proportion of his free time designing and building telescopes, gazing skyward, and publicly educating and advocating a love for space and amateur astronomy. From decades of Stellafane conventions, local astronomy club meetings, and sidewalk observing sessions, to running public telescope building classes, building machines to make grinding mirrors easier, and driving around the state collecting light pollution data, astronomy really is one of his passions.

Growing up in that environment meant a love for a starry night sky was basically a given. That's why I was very surprised back in October, when I realized it had been quite a while — probably years! — since I'd spent any time looking through a telescope (or really even seen a dark sky, living in the middle of a seven-million-person metro area).

A dark sky above San José.

I resolved to promptly fix this lack of starlight, and did some telescope shopping! Given my previous history of DIY projects, I opted for a off-the-shelf solution, much unlike the telescopes I grew up with; this was for the best, though, as it was the only way that there would be light coming through the eyepiece before 2025. Naturally, I also decided to combine this with one of my favorite hobbies, and got all the components needed to attach my camera to the telescope.

A few weeks (and well over one hundred pounds of voluminous packages from Orion, much to the dismay of apartment complex staff) later, Matt and I set out, car filled with mirrors, glass, cameras, and snacks, and … didn't see anything! The telescope didn't even come out of the car. We had headed up Mt. Hamilton, east of San José, with a vague destination in mind, but had not confirmed that it was actually open after dark, which it was not (apparently, the local astronomy group has a deal with the park, but random people like us can't open the gate). So, we bailed out for the day, and awaited another clear night.

The Fiesta, full of bits and pieces, on our most recent outing.

We finally got first light on November 7th, after spending a good portion of the night figuring out how to perform the requisite polar alignment and going through the three-star alignment process at least twice (having the first time aligned with a star that definitely wasn't Polaris, somehow). We had found a workable, dark, quiet spot, south of San José: Coyote Lake, near Morgan Hill. We had previously driven to Coyote Lake for a meteor shower, so we knew it was accessible at night, unlike Grant Park.

Coyote Lake, facing north, before it gets too dark!

The telescope, all set up and ready to go next to the lake.

We peered upwards for a number of hours that night, letting the telescope's software guide us to whatever was visible at the time (any chance of finding things without the computer also sat — or probably slept, given the time difference — three thousand miles away in Vermont). Alternating between looking through the eyepiece and attaching the camera (and refocusing constantly because of this swapping), we saw galaxies, nebulae, clusters, and stars galore:

Seeing the picture of Orion pop up on the camera was the first big "wow" moment for me: in the telescope, with my terrible eyes, it looks like a ill-defined grey smudge, but the colors that come out of the camera after just half-minute exposures are totally incredible (if not a bit out of focus).

A number of these pictures have streaks from meteors in them if you look closely; in person, we saw many throughout the night. A pleasant but unplanned surprise!

As the night went on, the temperature dropped — thirty degree nightly swings are no surprise, here, and this night was no different:

Even with warm clothing, eventually the cold got to us and we packed up and headed home! All-in-all, a very successful first evening with the new telescope.

Some of the Pleiades, with their whispy dust clouds just barely perceptible.

The winter and spring went by without going out again; between work, travel, weather, and laziness, many opportunities were missed (I did actually take the telescope out once by myself during these months, but left a critical component behind and had to turn back after getting it half set up — a good lesson never to repeat).

We finally resolved to get out again, and blocked off a new-moon weekend on the calendar: Independence Day weekend, 2016. When I put this on the calendar, I didn't make the connection, but as we got closer to the date I worried a bit more about the camping crowds. Luckily, it seems like San José is not a prime camping spot, because there were no crowds — just a few people fishing nearby (though, using white lights).

Matt doing the three-star alignment procedure — this time, only once!

The telescope setup process, which Matt is now the expert on, remains non-trivial and entertaining. This time I also brought a pair of binoculars to use in the meantime, but without a guide I didn't have much luck finding anything (besides an airplane!).

As soon as we got set up, we pointed the telescope towards the quickly-setting planets: Mars and Saturn. Once we bumped up the magnification a bit, Saturn's rings were readily visible — one of the bigger "wow" moments of the night — sadly, since the current photography setup I am using involves putting the camera directly in place of the eyepiece, the magnification isn't sufficient to make anything out in the picture below. I'm looking into other approaches that put the camera behind the eyepiece and would theoretically allow for high-magnification imaging... we'll see, next time!

Saturn, but you'll just have to trust me on this.

This time, the Trifid Nebula (and the Ring, not pictured here) provided the camera-assisted pop-of-purple, in place of Orion (which is not visible in the summer).

I really enjoy observing clusters, mostly because they provide something slightly more visible to the telescoped-eye than the smudge of a nebula; it's easy to make out the mess of stars even without a camera.

A globular cluster; sadly, because we haven't gotten into the habit of taking notes, I don't know which one.

We stayed out until past two, once again forced in by the cold (in the middle of July!) and a need for sleep.

Overall, I'm glad to have revisited this part of my childhood, and I'm excited to get out again! I can't wait to see what more practice will bring to the pictures, and for the fun we'll have out in the dark amongst the stars. (Once we get a bit more experienced and quick with the setup, I intend to take others along — at least Alicia, but... if you want to come, let me know!).

A few months ago, Alicia and I decided we should take a short vacation — somewhere close by, just for a weekend, to get away and hang out. We picked San Diego, as I had spent a summer there and might make for a good tour guide (or so we thought). I plotted and schemed and we eventually both asked for a mid-August Monday off to make our travel worthwhile.

Friday

We flew out of San Francisco on Virgin America, a first for me — a lucky choice, too, as we were quite late getting to the airport, and they have a terminal separate from the main SFO terminal, so security was a breeze. The flight was quick and smooth, except for one enormous burst of turbulence just before landing in San Diego which had everyone grasping their seats.

Once we landed, we acquired our rental car and headed towards the Gaslamp. Suddenly, after rounding a corner on Harbor Drive, there were some lovely fireworks over the ballpark straight ahead of us, greeting us to San Diego. A warm welcome, as usual :)

We checked into Hotel Indigo, our stop for the evening, and went out in search of a very late dinner. Most restaurants were closed; even most bars' kitchens had shut down for the night, but we were directed to Bub's, which had acceptable food (and not-so service, but I guess we shouldn't have expected much) for a late night. I had my classic "ahg this is a bar why am I here save me" moments, but the company I held more than made up for it :)

Saturday

Saturday started out with a quick drive to Balboa Park, where we grabbed lunch at The Prado, visited Spreckels Organ Pavilion, and wandered around. We eventually headed over to the San Diego Zoo, a must-not-miss stop on our trip (and Alicia's only specific request). It's a fantastic zoo, and we spent hours wandering around and watching the koalas, elephants (always my favorite!), and strange birds. You can see the elephants featured prominently in the one-minute summary video.

I actually don't remember seeing the giant koala exhibit on previous trips, but I love them, so that was a pretty awesome treat. They weren't particularly active (ok, they were pretty much completely asleep the whole time), but maybe that's for the best; they're cuter if they're not screaming at things and being aggressive.

Exhausted after the zoo (I walked ~18k steps that day, which is something like 6x a lazy Cupertino day!) , we headed to Coronado, our second night's destination. Alicia — who did all of our driving — was a bit apprehensive about driving across the giant bridge, but did wonderfully all the same. The bridge is ridiculous, but provides a good view of both the city and the island (as long as you're not the driver!).

That night, we stayed at the Coronado Beach Resort, right across the street from the too-pricey but scenic and famous Hotel del Coronado. I wandered a bit around the city in the evening, eventually acquiring take-out from Leroy's Kitchen + Lounge, which was delicious, and was devoured in the company of the towel-ephant that the hotel had left us:

We had a hard time leaving him behind the next day, as you might imagine.

Sunday

Awake and refreshed, we wandered the streets of Coronado, eventually (quickly) stumbling upon Fabrison's French Crêperie Café, where we had delicious crêpes before wandering around Coronado Beach (in sneakers, no less). I took a 360° panorama of Coronado Beach; this is a small slice of Hotel Del, but you can click to see the whole thing:

After getting our shoes sandy, we headed up to my old summer hometown of La Jolla, a return I was dearly anticipating. La Jolla was a good temporary home which I much prefer to the Bay Area — even though the South Bay has been pretty awesome to me — so it was nice to be back.

We quickly headed down to the shore, wandering along La Jolla Cove, entertained by the birds, people, and adorable seals that call La Jolla their home. A few hours were spent walking on the rocks and beaches along the coast, and Alicia made sure to touch (but not enter!) the Pacific, resulting in sandy hands, resulting in a desire to wash them in the ocean, lather, rinse, repeat, etc. Adorable, of course!

After a good dose of seals (and a bit of Alicia's habit of chasing down bees for photo opportunities), we checked in for our third and final evening, at the Grande Colonial, right in the middle of downtown. For whatever reason, they gave us an "ocean view", which provided us with a pretty awesome Pacific coast sunset.

Dinner was an old favorite (actually, the same place I went for my 21st birthday, three years earlier, with my family), Whisknladle. I can't even begin to describe how awesome this place is, from the food and service to the music and overall atmosphere, it's just pretty much perfect. Alicia later noted that she particularly enjoyed it too, so it's not just nostalgia, I swear!

To round out an awesome day, we took a somewhat-freezing-cold nighttime dip in the pool, something I haven't done (even in a warmer scenario) in a long time; a welcome chance to relax after our adventures.

Monday

As Alicia said "french toast" when I asked her about breakfast on Monday, we headed off to The Cottage; they do french toast a bit over the top — a stuffed variant, with fruit inside and such. Quite delicious, but I think our breakfast was probably enough for the next week or so.

Stuffed and happy, we headed up to one of my favorite places to go when I lived in La Jolla, the Torrey Pines Gliderport, right next to the Salk Institute. There's a bench on the south side of the launch area where the whole world just fades away. All you can hear is the breeze and the ocean far below — very serene — and I was extremely glad to get to share that with Alicia (after having excitedly described it, repeatedly). Unfortunately, there were no gliders in the air for us to watch, but we had a good time anyway.

We rounded out the day visiting Seaport Village, where we perused (and purchased) Mexican tiles and peered at the giant boats across the bay, and Horton Plaza, which we stopped at for a short time to rest (and because of the silly name?) and look around.

And then it was time to head back north, our perfect little weekend trip behind us, but with the promise of many more ahead of us!

927 pictures at 15fps from my trip with Alicia to San Diego. If it doesn't play for whatever reason, there's a much higher resolution version you can download here. There's a longer blog post coming, but there were some nice little sequences that made me want to post this first.

It was my fourteenth birthday—summer 2003, just a few months before I started high school… Vivian and Margaret decided to be their traditionally-ridiculously-generous-selves, and offered to replace my desktop (an HP tower, also from them!). Young Tim of course started dreaming of some crazy PC (perhaps constructed from parts, perhaps off the shelf), but then they said something like "we know you've been eyeing Apple's offerings, maybe you want to get a Mac?"

Now, some context here: much of my close family at the time were employed by IBM; we had no Apple folk around; our schools were full of Dells; I'd used some Mac IIs many years earlier, but not since then. So, of course, I went for that :)

Little did they (or anyone!) know what that amazing birthday present would turn into, eight years later—one of those tiny whole-life turning points, I guess.

The machine that eventually (just days before Airborne Express, who had some … troubles … delivering it, became a company no longer) arrived was a decked-out PowerMac G4 MDD.

It shipped with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), though Panther came out a few months later. Apparently, Jaguar was the last release of OS X to ship without Safari; I don't remember, but I do remember running the Safari Beta, all those years ago. John Siracusa's Jaguar review also notes that it was the first release to include the big cat codename in the official marketing name, which is pretty cool.

Trinity, as I called it, was a trusty companion throughout high school, introducing me to AppleWorks, and eventually Keynote, and later Pages, all of which were absolutely cruical to me for those four years. And, to Safari… and we know how that went. It followed me to college, sitting under my desk and acting as a fileserver for a few years, then later running various PowerPC Linux distributions for various reasons. And, even to Cupertino, where it sits under the desk in my bedroom, unpowered but ready to spring to life at any sign of need.

It really does still boot today, though it did have a pair of power supply malfunctions in 2008, which resulted first in me dragging it to the Crossgates Apple store on a CDTA bus, and then later me resorting to using a random G3 we had laying around. I don't actually remember how it recovered, but it did.

So, thanks, Vivian and Margaret, for turning a birthday present into oh-so-much more! It's been a great ten years!

Complaining about the state of public transit in the Bay Area — especially the South Bay — is basically a regional pastime among 20-somethings around here — myself included.

That said, there is one tiny sliver of public transit that is currently absolutely central to my life: the VTA's 23 bus route.

When I say absolutely central, I mean it — sure, during my summer in San Diego, the SDMTS-41 was pretty critical for my weekend outings, and in Troy, the CDTA-22 would often prove useful for trips to Albany — but nothing holds a candle to the 23. I even included it in my trips map (which needs to be revised now that I've moved!).

It gets me to work; it gets me home from work; it gets me to San José; it gets me to the grocery store on occasion. It gets me to Ryan and Julia's apartment, to visit them or Maeby; to both of the nearby malls; to a wide variety of restaurants; even to the Post Office (though it falls a bit short on that trip).

I met my girlfriend on the 23, while going to the airport (yet another occasional destination, though there are two further transfers required to get all the way there). Now, the very same bus shuttles us between each others' apartments (literally almost door-to-door service1, every 15 minutes), on dates, and all manner of trips throughout the South Bay.

We even walked a four-mile stretch along its route one day, for fun — suffice it to say we appreciate the convenience of the bus even more after that experience.

I cannot even begin to imagine living a carless life in Cupertino/Santa Clara/San Jose without the 23. When I recently was forced to search for a new apartment, my sole constraint was "it absolutely must be near the 23!" (my previous apartment was a 20 minute walk to the nearest bus stop; now, less than one minute!).

So, uh... there's my ode to my beloved bus.

EDIT: 91 Clipper transactions in the last 60 days, 85 of which are trips on the 23!

1 In fact, the only time the 23 leaves its straight line path along Steven's Creek/San Carlos between its westernmost point and San José is exactly where she lives. It's like the route was designed for us!

After having not seen each other for almost a year, Carol came out to Cupertino for a whole week! I took the week off, and we had pretty much the busiest, most amazing week ever together. I'll write about some of the things in more detail later, but here's a linkified extremely-brief summary: (there are a few pages of pictures on Flickr, as always)